Disclaimer: This was taken from a post, I take no credit for this.

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

The Return

Thursday, March 16, 2006

Get out of MySpace, bloggers rage at Murdoch

London independent | January 9 2006

Angry members of MySpace, the personal file-sharing website for young adults, are accusing Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation of censoring their postings and blocking their access to rival sites. The 38 million subscribers to MySpace, which News Corp bought for $629m (£355m) last July, discovered that when they wrote to each other about rival video-swapping site YouTube, the words were automatically deleted, and attempts to download video images from YouTube led to blank screens. The intervention by News Corp in the traditionally open-access world of the web - in particular the alteration of personal user profiles - provoked a storm of angry posts in online "blogs".

"This is soooo like Fox and News Corp to try and secretly seal our mouths with duct tape," wrote "Alex" to Blog Herald. The protests gathered pace, and when 600 MySpace customers complained and a campaign began to boycott the site and relocate to rival sites such as Friendster, Linkedin, revver.com and Facebook.com, News Corp relented and restored the links. However, MySpace managers promptly shut down the blog forum on which members had complained about the interference. An online notice said the problem was the result of "a simple misunderstanding." The explanation did not, however, calm the bloggers. "There was an outcry by some members after MySpace's acquisition by News Corp. People were afraid they might start monitoring or censoring MySpace," Ellis Yu wrote to the Blog Herald. "At the time, their CEO said nothing like that would happen. Well, now it has. MySpace was built on an open community and now they're trying to censor us, putting business interests above its members!"

"MySpace is supposed to be a personal forum!" wrote "makisha" at the blog site Supr.c.iliu.us. "Now it's owned by some corporation and it's being sensored sic! The beauty of it has been ruined. Better wise up MySpace or you're going to loose sic a good portion of your subscribers." A spokesman for MySpace said it would not explain how the blocking of YouTube came about, nor how it was resolved, nor whether in future it would continue to block links to rival websites or censor messages between MySpace customers. Mr Murdoch, 74, last week appointed 33-year-old Jeremy Philips to run News Corp's internet strategy and armed him with a $1bn fund to buy more sites.

ANOTHER ARTICLE
MySpace Is The Trojan Horse Of Internet Censorship
Media elite's last gasp effort to save crumbling empire

P Joseph Watson & A Jones | March 16 2006

MySpace isn't cool, it isn't hip and it isn't trendy. It represents a cyber trojan horse and the media elite's last gasp effort to reclaim control of the Internet and sink it with a stranglehold of regulation, control and censorship. Since Rupert Murdoch's $580 Million acquisition of MySpace in July 2005, it has come from total obscurity to now being the 8th most visited website in the world, receiving half as many page hits as Google, despite the fact that on first appearance it looks like a 5-year-old's picture scrap and scribble book. MySpace is the new mobile phone. If you don't have a MySpace account then you belong to some kind of culturally shunned underclass. What most of the trendy wendy's remain blissfully unaware of is the fact that MySpace is Rupert Murdoch's battle axe for shaping a future Internet environment whereby electronic dissent, whether it be against corporations or government, will not tolerated and freedom of e-speech will cease to exist. MySpace has been caught shutting down blogs critical of itself and other Murdoch owned companies. They even had the audacity to censor links to completely different websites when clicking through for MySpace. When 600 MySpace users complained, MySpace deleted the blog forum that the complaints were posted on. Taking their inspiration from Communist China, MySpace regularly uses blanket censorship to block out words like 'God'. Earlier this week Rupert Murdoch sounded the death knell for conventional forms of media in stating that the media elite were losing their monopoly to the rapid and free spread of new communication technologies. Murdoch stressed the need to regain control of these outlets in order to prevent the establishment media empire from crumbling. MySpace is Rupert Murdoch's trojan horse for destroying free speech on the Internet. It is a foundational keystone of the first wave of the state's backlash to the damage that a free and open Internet has done to their organs of propaganda. By firstly making it cool, trendy and culturally elite for millions to flock to establishment controlled Internet backbones like MySpace, Murdoch is preparing the groundwork for the day when it will stop being voluntary and become mandatory to use government and corporate monopoly controlled Internet hubs. The end game is a system similar to or worse than China, whereby no websites even mildly critical of the government will be authorized. The Pentagon admitted that they would engage in psychological warfare and cyber attacks on 'enemy' Internet websites in an attempt to shut them down. The fact that the NSA surveillance program spied on 5,000 Americans tells us that the enemy is the alternative media and that it will be targeted for elimination. Google has been ordered to turn over information about its users by a judge to the US government. The second wave of destroying freedom of speech online will simply attempt to price people out of using the conventional Internet and force people over to Internet 2, a state regulated hub where permission will need to be obtained directly from an FCC or government bureau to set up a website. The original Internet will then be turned into a mass surveillance database and marketing tool. The Nation magazine reported, "Verizon, Comcast, Bell South and other communications giants are developing strategies that would track and store information on our every move in cyberspace in a vast data-collection and marketing system, the scope of which could rival the National Security Agency. According to white papers now being circulated in the cable, telephone and telecommunications industries, those with the deepest pockets--corporations, special-interest groups and major advertisers--would get preferred treatment. Content from these providers would have first priority on our computer and television screens, while information seen as undesirable, such as peer-to-peer communications, could be relegated to a slow lane or simply shut out." The original Internet will deliberately be subject to crash upon crash until it becomes a useless carcass of overpriced trash and its reputation will be defiled by the TV and media barons cashing in on the perfectly streamlined Internet 2, the free for all network that just requires you to thumbscan in order to log on! Those with a security grading below yellow on their national ID card will unfortunately be refused access. Websites that carry hate speech (ones that talk about government corruption) will be censored for the betterment of society. For the aspiring dictator, the Internet is a dangerous tool that has been seized by the enemy. We have come a long way since 1969, when the ARPANET was created solely for US government use. The Internet is freedom's best friend and the bane of control freaks. Its eradication is one of the short term goals of those that seek to centralize power and subjugate the world under a global surveillance panopticon prison Rupert Murdoch's MySpace and its ceaseless promotion by the establishment media as the best thing since sliced bread is part of this movement. In saying all this we do encourage everyone to set up a MySpace account, but only if you're going to use it to bash MySpace, Rupert Murdoch and copy and paste this article right at the top of the page! See how long it is before your account is terminated.

Friday, February 17,2006

Right Click, Save Target As To Save & View In AN External Player
Here is a ten minute "see-for-yourself" report that conclusively shows that Vice President Dick Cheney's claims to Kennedy County Sheriff's Deputies in south Texas is a total fabrication. A massive cover-up has been conducted concerning the shooting. We know that most of the facts that have been told to the public are manufactured frauds.Cheney claims that he shot Whittington at 90 feet, ballistic tests from the spread of the shotgun pellets to their penetration depth is 100% Conclusive. Harry Whittington was shot at close range, between 15 and 18 feet, not the 90 claimed by Dick Cheney and the Secret Service. It is now clear why they refused to let Sheriff's Deputies interview Cheney for over 13 hours and why they claimed that Whittington's injuries were superficial when in truth they were grievous. The mainstream media is ignoring this literal smoking gun evidence. Anytime they wish, the local police can conduct their own ballistics tests and they will have the exact same findings. The media can conduct their own tests. The ballistics of shotguns and birdshot is well known to tens of millions of Americans who hunt fowl. We have now scientifically proved with an engineer and a police officer on-site conducting the test that the American people are being lied to and a cover-up is in progress.

Tuesday, February 14,2006

Copwatch Los Angeles
Persecution of Copwatchers

www.myspace.com/copwatchla

========
Dear Copwatch groups and friends,

My name is Andrea Prichett and I am writing from
Berkeley Copwatch in California. I am writing because
I am concerned about a situation in our area that may
set a dangerous precedent for those of us who are
trying to do direct monitoring of police. Please
consider taking a moment to call, fax or email a
message to the City Manager to protest the use of a
restraining order to stop citizens from observing
police. If this can happen in Reedley, it can happen
to all of us.

Bernabe is a former police officer with the Reedley
department who quit the force in 1995 to begin
exposing police misconduct there. He needs some
support. A letter, call or fax sure would help.

Yours in solidarity,

Andrea Prichett

***********************************************
FROM Bernabe Santillan (reedleycopwatch@zoomshare.com)

Hi all you copwatchers out their in I need a little
help from you guys and girls. I started a local
copwatch in my town after an incident
with the local PD and filed a complaint of brutality
against officers. I was served with a restraining
order on 02/06/2006, the judge denied
the order but held it for a hearing on 02/16/2006 in
Fresno, Ca. The Reedley PD is trying to stop me from
following officers and filming them
and also from taking pictures of them while on duty.
They are also want me to stay away from all the police
officers 100 yards because they
say they are scared for their safety. The officers
including the chief wrote a bunch of lies about me on
the affadivits. They claim I drive around at night
with out my headlights on and work covertly to catch
them in the act. I need you guys to flood the city
with emails and faxes protesting this violation of my
first amendment right. 559-638-1093 is
the fax number to city manager his email is
bnakamura@reedley.com. the police department fax
number is (559) 638-2615 Admin

thanks alot
www.reedleycopwatch.zoomshare.com

Saturday, February 11,2006

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.J.RES.24.IH:
http://www.freedomunderground.org/memoryhole/pentagon.php
http://www.nostradamusonline.com

Thursday, February 2, 2006

"The cost to the good people for their indifference to their public affairs is to be ruled by evil men."

- Plato

• * *

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

- Martin Luther King Jr.

• * *

"There is substantial evidence that the fear of domestic disruption has inhibited murderous plans. One documented case concerns Vietnam. The Joint Chiefs of Staff recognized the need that 'sufficient forces would still be available for civil disorder control.' if they sent troops to Vietnam after the Tet Offensive, and Pentagon officials feared that escalation might lead to massive civil disobedience, in view of the large-scale popular opposition to the war, running the risk of 'provoking a domestic crisis of unprecented proportions.' A review of the internal documents released in the Pentagon Papers shows that considerations of cost were the sole factor inhibiting planners, a fact that should be noted by citizens concerned to restrain the violence of the state. In such cases as these, and many others, popular demonstrations and civil disobedience may, under appropriate circumstances, encourage others to undertake a broader range of conventional action by extending the range of the thinkable, and where there is real popular understanding of the legitimacy of direct action to confront institutional violence, may serve as a catalyst to constructive organization and action that will pave the way to more fundamental change."

- Noam Chomsky

• * *

"Contrary to popular belief, conventional wisdom would have one believe that it is insane to resist this, the mightiest of empires.... But what history really shows is that today's empire is tomorrow's ashes, that nothing lasts forever, and that to not resist is to acquiesce in your own oppression. The greatest form of sanity that anyone can exercise is to resist that force that is trying to repress, oppress, and fight down the human spirit."

- Mumia Abu-Jamal

• * *

"Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. ...Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. ...Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."

- Frederick Douglass, 1849

• * *

"The citizen's job is to be rude--to pierce the comfort of professional intercourse by boorish expressions of doubt."

- John Ralston Saul, The Doubter's Companion

• * *

"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive."

Thomas Jefferson, letter to Abigail Adams, February 22, 1787

• * *

The magic word before whose power
Even the people's masters cower,
Flapping their wigs officiously--
Prick up your ears; the word--it is publicity.

- Late 18th Century German verse

• * *

"The govenment has often undertaken the secret surveillance of citizens on the basis of their political beliefs, even when those beliefs posed no threat of violence or illegal acts on behalf of a hostile foreign power... Groups and individuals have been harassed and disrupted because of their political views and their lifestyles."

- The Church Committee Report, 1975

• * *

"Regardless of the unattractiveness or noisy militancy of some private citizens or organizations, the Constitution does not permit federal interference with their activities except throught the criminal justice system, armed with it's ancient safeguards. There are no exceptions. No federal agency, the CIA, the IRS, the FBI, can be at the same time policeman, prosecutor, judge and jury. That is what constitutionally guaranteed due process is all about. It may sometimes be disorderly and unsatisfactory to some, but it is the essence of freedom... I suggest that the philosophy supporting COINTELPRO is the subversive notion that any public official, the President, or a policeman, possesses a kind of inherent power to set aside the Constitution whenever he thinks the public interest, or 'national security' warrants it. That notion is a postulate of tyranny."

- Congressman Don Edwards, 1975

• * *

"Critical thinking is compatible with patriotism... Amnesia is not a requirement for patriotism... We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think, the soul of America dies with it."

- Edward R. Murrow

• * *

"The most serious threat to democracy is the notion that it has already been achieved."

- Author unknown

• * *

"To go against the dominant thinking of your friends, of most of the people you see everyday, is perhaps the most difficult act of heroism you can perform."

- Theodore H White

• * *

"If you think of yourselves as helpless and ineffectual, it is certain that you will create a despotic government to be your master. The wise despot, therefore, maintains among his subjects a popular sense that they are helpless and ineffectual."

- Frank Herbert

• * *

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world; indeed it's the only thing that ever has."

- Margaret Meade

• * *

"Snowflakes are one of nature's most fragile things, but look at what they can do it they stick together."

- Vista M Kelly

• * *

"If you give me a fish, you have fed me for a day. If you teach me to fish, then you have fed me until the river is contaminated or the shore line seized for development. But if you teach me to organize, then whatever the challenge I can join together with my peers and we will fashion our own solution."

- Ricardo Levins Morales

• * *

"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty; power is ever stealing from the many to the few. The manna of popular liberty must be gathered each day or it is rotten. ... The hand entrusted with power becomes either form human depravity or esprit de corps, the necessary enemy of the people. Only by continued oversight can the democrat in office be prevented from hardening into a despot; only by un-intermitted agitation can a people be sufficiently awake to principle not to let liberty be smothered in material prosperity .. Never look, therefore for an age when the people can be quiet and safe. At such times Despotism like a shrouding mist, steals over the mirrior of Freedom... As health lies in labor, and there is no royal road to it but through roil, so there is no republican road to safety but in constant distrust..."

- Wendell Phillips.

• * *

"The outcome of today's struggles does not matter. It does not matter in the final count that one or two movements were temporarily defeated because what is definite is the decision to struggle which matures every day, the consciousness of the need for revolutionary change, and the certainty that it is possible."

- Ernesto "Che" Guevara

• * *

"What is hateful...is not rebellion but the despotism which induces the rebellion; what is hateful are not rebels but the men, who, having the enjoyment of power, do not discharge the duties of power; they are the men who, having the power to redress wrongs, refuse to listen to the petitioners that are sent to them; they are the men who, when they are asked for a loaf, give a stone."

- Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Speech in the House of Commons(Canada), 16 March 1886

• * *

"The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naive and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair."

- H.L. Mencken

• * *

"To be truly radical is to make hope possible rather than despair convincing."

- Raymond Williams

• * *

"Let me say, with the risk of appearing ridiculous, that the true revolutionary is guided by strong feelings of love. Above all, always be capable of feeling any injustice committed against anyone anywhere in the world."

- Che Guevara

• * *

"Those who attack the rationale of the game, and not the players, are it's most formidable adversaries."

- James J. Martin

• * *

"There are two ways not to suffer from the inferno we are all living in every day. The first suits most people: accept the inferno and become part of it to the point where you don't even see it any more. The second is riskier and requires constant attention and willingness to learn: seek out and know how to recognize whoever and whatever, in the midst of the inferno, is not inferno, and help them last, give them space."

- Italo Calvino

• * *

"I would like to believe that people have an instinct for freedom, that they really want to control their own affairs. They dont want to be pushed around, ordered, oppressed, etc., and they want a chance to do things that make sense, like constructive work in a way they control, or maybe control together with others. I dont know any way to prove this. Its really a hope about what human beings are like, a hope that if social structures change sufficiently, those aspects of human nature will be realized."

- Noam Chomsky

• * *

"The most heroic word in all languages is revolution."

- Eugene Debs

• * *

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can excercise their constitutional right of amending it, or excercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it."

- Abraham Lincoln

• * *

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

- John Fitzgerald Kennedy

• * *

"Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth."

- John F. Kennedy, speech, September 25, 1961

• * *

"The voice of protest, of warning, of appeal is never more needed than when the clamor of fife and drum, echoed by the press and too often by the pulpit, is bidding all men fall in and keep step and obey in silence the tyrannous word of command. Then, more than ever, it is the duty of the good citizen not to be silent."

- Charles Eliot Norton, True Patriotism, 1898

• * *

"Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels - men and women who dared to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, we may never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion."

- Dwight D. Eisenhower, speech, May 31, 1954

Saturday, January 6, 2006

La Voz De Ramona
Author Unknown:

this morning, a woman leaves us, though her presence will never dissipate nor cease to penetrate us.
comandanta ramona, a small indigenous woman who headed the january 1st, 1994 uprising taking of san cristobal de las casas while already terminally ill, gave a face and fierce sense of empowerment to the world of the indigenous, the indigenous woman in particular.

a humble, indigenous woman who lived larger and more fully than most will ever get to experience; a woman whose courage and resilience shines today as she drew her final breaths from her bodily form in san cristobal.

==========================================================
COMANDANTA RAMONA SPEAKING IN EL ZOCALO // D.F. IN 1996

12 de octubre de 1996.

Al pueblo de Mxico:

Hermanos y hermanas:

Por mi voz habla la voz del Ejrcito Zapatista de Liberacin Nacional.

Hoy hemos venido hasta aqu, hasta el centro de este pas que se llama Mxico, para decirle a todos los mexicanos y mexicanas unas cuantas palabras que tenemos nosotros los zapatistas.

De por s es muy pequea nuestra palabra de los zapatistas, pero su paso es muy grande y camina muy lejos y se entra en muchos corazones.

Estos corazones que nos escucharon son de hombres, mujeres, nios y ancianos que quieren un pas democrtico, libre y justo.

Estos corazones son los que nos ayudaron a llegar hasta el Zcalo de la ciudad de Mxico.

Estos corazones quieren lo mismo que los zapatistas queremos y lo que todos queremos.

Queremos un Mxico que nos tome en cuenta como seres humanos, que nos respete y reconozca nuestra dignidad.

Por eso queremos unir nuestra pequea voz de zapatistas a la voz grande de todos los que luchan por un Mxico nuevo.

Llegamos hasta aqu para gritar, junto con todos, los ya no, que nunca ms un Mxico sin nosotros.

Eso queremos, un Mxico donde todos tengamos un lugar digno.

Por eso estamos dispuestos a participar en un gran dilogo nacional con todos.

Un dilogo donde nuestra palabra sea una palabra ms en muchas palabras y nuestro corazn sea un corazn ms dentro de muchos corazones.

Para este dilogo nacional vamos a caminar mucho y vamos a dar muchos pasos.

Nosotros estamos dispuestos a todo para dar estos pasos.

Pero necesitamos que todos ustedes nos ayuden a caminar a todos los zapatistas, as como me ayudaron a m a caminar hasta aqu.

Hermanos y hermanas mexicanos:

Yo soy la comandante Ramona del Ejrcito Zapatista de Liberacin Nacional.

Soy el primero de muchos pasos de los zapatistas al Distrito Federal y a todos los lugares de Mxico.

Esperamos que todos ustedes caminen junto a nosotros.

Esta es nuestra palabra, hermanos y hermanas mexicanos.

Gracias.

Desde el Zcalo de la ciudad de Mxico

Distrito Federal

Por el Comit Clandestino Revolucionario Indgena-Comandancia General del Ejrcito Zapatista de Liberacin Nacional.

Comandante Ramona

Mxico, octubre de 1996
=====================================
".....but Ramona--
with eyes of Obsidion,
peering thru her blood and sweat drenched mask

Darting,
Unseen

changing direction w/ the swiftness of a bird
thru the shanties of the canyon

w/ every Coyote
every Insect
every phylum of Life--

urging her

Propelling her forward

the leaves and branches of the forest
part for miles
clearing her path

the voices and screams of the dead beneath her feet
ECHO beneath the deepest CHASM of her sOuL
Hurling her toward the city

History
Surging thru her Veins
Pulsing thru her fingers
hurling her toward the city

she carresses her trigger
and the words of Magon fulfill her being

and with each shot she fires
she AFFIRMS her MoVement

SaYiNg--

ENOUGH!
ENOUGH!

NO!

I WILL SEE MY OWN BLOOD FLOW

BEFORE YOU TAKE

MY LAND

OR MY LIBERTY.

Monday, January 2, 2006

Disclaimer: This was taken from a post, I take no credit for this.

Zapatista Solidarity Coalition wrote:
Queridos amig@s,

Before this date turns over into another day, let us take a moment to appreciate the significance of January 1st, 1994, and the difference it has made in our own and so many others' lives.

Let's remember that it was ordinary men and women who, rising above what had been ordained for them by society, opened for us that day by their love, sacrifice, and commitment, the door to the "other world" that we are building together. As we look in our mirrors twelve years later, and see only ordinary people, let us once again take courage and inspiration from their example.

The Zapatista struggle seems to be one of many struggles that the world endures today, and even within our ranks, our strengths often seem to be divided between issues that pull us apart, by priorities that seem to conflict. But the heart of Zapatismo is universal: the human dignity of every individual. And that universal value unites all of us who struggle around the world, trapped within our nations, cultures, and languages, for the long dreamed-of world in which fear, hunger, and misery have been banished. We don't need weapons or
armies, or even money, to build that world. We only need
understanding, love, and the courage to do something that has never been done before.

The Zapatistas, together with others like them, are showing us the way. We are honored to be on that path with all of you.

For the ZSC,

Mario Galvan

The Zapatista Solidarity Coalition
909 12th St. .. 118
Sacramento, CA 95814
(916) 443-3424
zapa@zsc.org
================>
READ: http://stopminitmen.blogspot.com/
MORE: http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=9077
GET INVOLVED: http://www.caferebelion.com/
READ: :http://www.enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/
================>

Sunday, January 1, 2005

Disclaimer: This was taken from a post, I take no credit for this.





By IOAN GRILLO, Associated Press Writer

LA GARRUCHA, Mexico - Zapatista rebels in rickety trucks and buses streamed out of this village Sunday, leaving their jungle strongholds for the first time in four years for a six-month tour of Mexico aimed at reshaping the nation's politics.
imprimir artculo / print article autojustificar texto

Thousands of supporters cheered as Subcommandante Marcos, the Indian rights movement's ski-masked leader, roared through La Garrucha on a black motorcycle with a Mexican flag tied to the back and the initials of the Zapatista military army, EZLN, painted in red on the front.

The caravan's trip through all 31 states and Mexico City is meant to influence Mexico's July presidential election. Marcos has said Zapatista leaders will reach out to leftist groups across the country, creating a national movement that will "turn Mexico on its head."

The rebels have pledged to move away from armed struggle and toward politics, but have not clearly defined their new political role 12 years after seizing several towns in southern Chiapas state in short-lived revolt for Indian rights and socialism.

Marcos, who has never revealed his true identity but has been identified by the government as a former university instructor in Mexico City, has abandoned his military title in favor of the civilian moniker "Delegate Zero."

La Garrucha, accessible only by dirt road, is a rebel-sympathetic village 75 miles from San Cristobal de las Casas, a large mountain city in southernmost Chiapas state.

Marcos' travels marked the first time the Zapatistas have left their strongholds in the jungles of Chiapas since a triumphant tour to Mexico City in the name of Indian rights that made international headlines in 2001. They largely disappeared from public view following that trip.

Former Mexico City Mayor Manuel Lopez Obrador, of the leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party, is the favorite to win the July elections, but Marcos has criticized the candidate. President Vicente Fox, whose 2000 victory ended 71 years of single-party rule, is barred from running again.

Marcos, known for the pipe and guns he often carries in public, has said the Zapatistas will not run for office or join Mexico's political mainstream.

In speeches from a wooden stage in La Garrucha's main square before the tour, regional rebel leaders offered kind words to non-Zapatista leftist groups, some of which they have fought in the past.

"To the brothers who aren't Zapatistas, we respect all of you, whatever your organization, party or religion," said a masked man, introduced as the leader of La Garrucha, a rebel-controlled village. "We aren't looking for a fight with anybody."

The first leg of the tour is San Cristobal de las Casas, where the Zapatistas started their rebellion on New Year's Day 1994. Thousands of gun-toting Indians took over the mayor's office and declared war on the Mexican government.

A cease-fire with government forces quickly ended the uprising, but there has been sporadic violence between rebel supporters and other Indian groups in southern Mexico.

Alejandro Cruz, a rebel supporter and 33-year-old high school teacher from Mexico City, said the Zapatistas could be looking to become an organization like the Brazilian landless peasant movement Sin Tierra, which has no candidates of its own but has a strong influence on elections.

"The tour is clearly part of a Zapatista strategy to get legal recognition," Cruz said. "Without that, they have a very uncertain future."

Ricardo Mendez, 28, a Zapatista farmer and native speaker of the Mayan tongue Tzeltal, said the rebels want to expand their influence.

"We will never die. Look how many of us there are," Mendez said, pointing to thousands of masked men and women and children in the village square.

Among the rebel's sympathizers gathered in La Garrucha was a group organized by Higher Grounds, a company from Lake Leelanau, Mich., that buys coffee from Zapatista communities at prices about 50 percent above the market rate.

Higher Grounds' 31-year-old owner, Chris Treter, said the Zapatista ideas could resonate north of the Rio Grande.

"There are a lot of people in Mexico and in the United States who are disenfranchised and are looking for a voice they can't find in the political parties," Treter said.

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Disclaimer: This was taken from a post, I take no credit for this.

The Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade (youth group of the Revolutionary Communist Party) has a group discussion on MySpace where the article I wrote, "Don't Just Protest, Organize!" is being discussed.

http://groups.myspace.com/YouthBrigadeLA

I wrote a response and wanted to share it with people.

==================================

Response to the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade

I like to thank the RCYB for letting me in on the debate and for taking the time to discuss the piece I wrote on organizing and protests. I'd like to further discuss some of my arguments, because the essay could not go into my position overall -- it wasn't my intention in doing that anyway.

I think what tends to happen a lot with authoritarian leftists is the "all or nothing approach" -- and what ends up happening is that you don't accomplish anything. You end up as an arm-chair/ivory tower intellectual. I have a disliking for party liners who spend their time on theory and no time on actually developing new ideas through your practice (developing a praxis).

I think the question was posed by my friend Rolando, how are you going to develop a revolution through a newspaper?

That is a very good point, and I can speak to this with my own experience. I used to be a member of the RCYB, and was a maoist in name (and an anarcho-communist in my heart). In the four years, I had to take out the Party's line -- mainly through their newspaper. In the housing projects in Watts when we were organizing, what ended up happening was that the "masses" ended up viewing the revolutionaries as Jehovah's Witnesses. They didn't relate to what we were talking about. They hid from us when we were trying to talk to them about communism. We didn't build any real relationships with them first, or even realize that people will not make the leap or see themselves as revolutionaries overnight. People have to empower themselves through organizing, taking action, taking up theory, and being part of all decision making. You can't just talk to them in some old dogmatic rhetoric and expect them to join the "vanguard."

Even in Russia -- what led to the revolution wasn't Lennin and their party's newspaper. It was a multi-faceted strategy -- where people organized themselves in ther workplaces and in their communities. It had a lot to do with the Military Revolutionary Committee (where anarchists and socialists organized the military to overthrow the tzar). The Soviets (councils of elected delegates) had to do witht the development of the struggle in Russia and developing direct-democracy. The Bolsheviks' opportunism led to one party rule in Russia and the centralizing of power in the soviets and the repression of autonomous communities (in particular in the Ukraine).

We need better living conditions, we need dignity and justice -- that's the reality.

You can't expect somebody to eat theory to survive -- and these are small reforms that are desirable. These are problems that we face in our communities and we need to struggle to change these today as part of our overall revolutionary vision. We face: isolation, degradation, exploitation, oppression and so on.

On the other hand you have what you mentioned -- the reformists. The folks who have no intention in connecting our organizing today to an overall program for fundamental change locally and globally.

We need to fight for dignity and justice in our communities, in our workplaces, and in our schools. We can't just go after the "bourgeoisie" -- but we have to connect our organizing to our overall aims. Reforms at this point (depending on how you carry them out or how you pose them to people) are not necesarily a bad thing, and can empower our movement in different ways -- but it shouldn't be left up to reforms.

The RCP views Revolution as an event: where we get our army and the ruling class has their army and we go at it -- that's wrong for different reasons. For one, its bound to fail and two are you trying to build a party or empower the "masses" to organize themselves and take back what belongs to them?

Revolutionary change is a process of building dual power and defending/safeguarding what we create and have taken back. Dual Power basically means that we build the structures right now that will replace capitalism and the state with all its oppressive institutions. This is happening right now (today) in communities in Chiapas and occupied factories in Argentina. They're building direct-democracy, autonomy, and dual-power through their organizing and their actions. I agree with George Jackson of the Black Panther Party-- I think that if we organize and build dual power the state will come down on us eventually. He called for self-defense (in any way possible) of the communities, but organizing locally through programs and projects of the BPP. When the state comes down on the community they will be organized and prepared. They would be coordinating also with other communities and fighting for similar aims and goals. This would result in a civil war -- where conflicting futures will struggle against each other. I think that this is part of an overall strategy where "humanity fights for humanity."

I do agree in order to win we NEED TO HAVE the orientation of humanity fighting for humanity, and uniting with the majority to defeat the minority, but I think we need solidarity among the working class/all of the oppressed first before we can have solidarity with other classes (but I don't disagree with having support from the middle strata at this point or even including them in our organizations).

Anarchists are not opposed to developing political positions, but we see our positions as changing with time and relating your ideas and your strategy to your region's conditions (I think Mao had similar ideas -- having himself been an anarchist and coopting Chinese Anarchists' ideas). The RCP as well as other state-socialists have a tendency to implement ideas and strategies that are outdated (basing them on history they have romanticized). We feel that we need to develop our leadership skills, not centralize power in the hands of a few.

We can point to where power has corrupted and turn revolutionaries (no matter how well intentioned) into oppressors -- as in China, Russia, Cambodia and so on. Also where movements were decapitated because of the reliance on a few charismatic leaders (as in the u.s. in the 1960's).

Bob Avakian, in my opinion, is a great intellectual. I do think we can organize for the revolutionary process with out his "vision and leadership" (which I don't think is innovative -- just recycling old dogma). I think that to have the position that "without this man we won't be successful" is backward. You're telling humanity in general, but Blacks, Latinos, Women, and all oppressed people in particular, that we have to rely on another rich white male to rule over us and save us. Is that really revolutionary? How is he going to lead us from his self-imposed exile, just through his writings?

Last thing I would like to get into is the argument over "the correct line." I don't think a small group of people can know what's in the interests of humanity. I don't think that this party can tell all of us how to organize ourselves and what is best for us. What about when the RCP had a position on homosexuality that WAS homophobic. They thought that homosexuality was a product of capitalism and that it would be abolished under socialism through "re-education." Ofcourse, they've come out recently and said that this position was incorrect, and "they've never had a problem with homosexuality." Regardless of their new position, they thought for decades that they were right. Imagine if these people had power, they would of rounded up all homosexuals and tried to re-educate their sexuality -- same as Christian fundamentalists do (same as Mao did in China and his answer to dealing with different lines). They were criticized for many years but didn't change their position until recently. Was the party right back then? Imagine if the RCP made a mistake in your line if you had state power -- they would kill and oppress hundreds and thousands.

The way you arrive at a position is through the direct-democratic or consensus process; through debate, dialogue and popular participation.

The revolutionary process is one that has to be made by the people not a vanguard party. This is why I'm part of a federation -- where we learn as we teach, we develop ourselves as longterm organizers, support and build solidarity among our communities and oppressed people, build support among other classes and humanity, and help in the process of self-organization in our communities, work-places, and schools.

My response,

Joaquin Cienfuegos

Anarcho-Communist and member of the Southern California Anarchist Federation -- Los Angeles

www.anarchistfederation.org www.scafla.communityfeast.org
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December 20, 2005
F.B.I. Watched Activist Groups, New Files Show
By ERIC LICHTBLAU

WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 - Counterterrorism agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation have conducted numerous surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations that involved, at least indirectly, groups active in causes as diverse as the environment, animal cruelty and poverty relief, newly disclosed agency records show.

F.B.I. officials said Monday that their investigators had no interest in monitoring political or social activities and that any investigations that touched on advocacy groups were driven by evidence of criminal or violent activity at public protests and in other settings.

After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, John Ashcroft, who was then attorney general, loosened restrictions on the F.B.I.'s investigative powers, giving the bureau greater ability to visit and monitor Web sites, mosques and other public entities in developing terrorism leads. The bureau has used that authority to investigate not only groups with suspected ties to foreign terrorists, but also protest groups suspected of having links to violent or disruptive activities.

But the documents, coming after the Bush administration's confirmation that President Bush had authorized some spying without warrants in fighting terrorism, prompted charges from civil rights advocates that the government had improperly blurred the line between terrorism and acts of civil disobedience and lawful protest.

One F.B.I. document indicates that agents in Indianapolis planned to conduct surveillance as part of a "Vegan Community Project." Another document talks of the Catholic Workers group's "semi-communistic ideology." A third indicates the bureau's interest in determining the location of a protest over llama fur planned by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

The documents, provided to The New York Times over the past week, came as part of a series of Freedom of Information Act lawsuits brought by the American Civil Liberties Union. For more than a year, the A.C.L.U. has been seeking access to information in F.B.I. files on about 150 protest and social groups that it says may have been improperly monitored.

The F.B.I. had previously turned over a small number of documents on antiwar groups, showing the agency's interest in investigating possible anarchist or violent links in connection with antiwar protests and demonstrations in advance of the 2004 political conventions. And earlier this month, the A.C.L.U.'s Colorado chapter released similar documents involving, among other things, people protesting logging practices at a lumber industry gathering in 2002.

The latest batch of documents, parts of which the A.C.L.U. plans to release publicly on Tuesday, totals more than 2,300 pages and centers on references in internal files to a handful of groups, including PETA, the environmental group Greenpeace and the Catholic Workers group, which promotes antipoverty efforts and social causes.

Many of the investigative documents turned over by the bureau are heavily edited, making it difficult or impossible to determine the full context of the references and why the F.B.I. may have been discussing events like a PETA protest. F.B.I. officials say many of the references may be much more benign than they seem to civil rights advocates, adding that the documents offer an incomplete and sometimes misleading snapshot of the bureau's activities.

"Just being referenced in an F.B.I. file is not tantamount to being the subject of an investigation," said John Miller, a spokesman for the bureau.

"The F.B.I. does not target individuals or organizations for investigation based on their political beliefs," Mr. Miller said. "Everything we do is carefully promulgated by federal law, Justice Department guidelines and the F.B.I.'s own rules."

A.C.L.U officials said the latest batch of documents released by the F.B.I. indicated the agency's interest in a broader array of activist and protest groups than they had previously thought. In light of other recent disclosures about domestic surveillance activities by the National Security Agency and military intelligence units, the A.C.L.U. said the documents reflected a pattern of overreaching by the Bush administration.

"It's clear that this administration has engaged every possible agency, from the Pentagon to N.S.A. to the F.B.I., to engage in spying on Americans," said Ann Beeson, associate legal director for the A.C.L.U.

"You look at these documents," Ms. Beeson said, "and you think, wow, we have really returned to the days of J. Edgar Hoover, when you see in F.B.I. files that they're talking about a group like the Catholic Workers league as having a communist ideology."

The documents indicate that in some cases, the F.B.I. has used employees, interns and other confidential informants within groups like PETA and Greenpeace to develop leads on potential criminal activity and has downloaded material from the groups' Web sites, in addition to monitoring their protests.

In the case of Greenpeace, which is known for highly publicized acts of civil disobedience like the boarding of cargo ships to unfurl protest banners, the files indicate that the F.B.I. investigated possible financial ties between its members and militant groups like the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front.

These networks, which have no declared leaders and are only loosely organized, have been described by the F.B.I. in Congressional testimony as "extremist special interest groups" whose cells engage in violent or other illegal acts, making them "a serious domestic terrorist threat."

In testimony last year, John E. Lewis, deputy assistant director of the counterterrorism division, said the F.B.I. estimated that in the past 10 years such groups had engaged in more than 1,000 criminal acts causing more than $100 million in damage.

When the F.B.I. investigates evidence of possible violence or criminal disruptions at protests and other events, those investigations are routinely handled by agents within the bureau's counterterrorism division.

But the groups mentioned in the newly disclosed F.B.I. files questioned both the propriety of characterizing such investigations as related to "terrorism" and the necessity of diverting counterterrorism personnel from more pressing investigations.

"The fact that we're even mentioned in the F.B.I. files in connection with terrorism is really troubling," said Tom Wetterer, general counsel for Greenpeace. "There's no property damage or physical injury caused in our activities, and under any definition of terrorism, we'd take issue with that."

Jeff Kerr, general counsel for PETA, rejected the suggestion in some F.B.I. files that the animal rights group had financial ties to militant groups, and said he, too, was troubled by his group's inclusion in the files.

"It's shocking and it's outrageous," Mr. Kerr said. "And to me, it's an abuse of power by the F.B.I. when groups like Greenpeace and PETA are basically being punished for their social activism."

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Statement from Joe Veale, for the Revolutionary Communist Speaking Tour on the Execution of Stanley "Tookie" Williams

Stanley Tookie Williams, co-founder of the Crip street gang in Los Angeles, is scheduled to be executed tonight in San Quentin Prison just after midnight.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger coldly and callously refused to grant him clemency, saying that the facts do not justify overturning the court decision. Even though Tookie Williams had changed and became a very outspoken advocate against gang violence and for peace. They showed him no mercy. But it is deeper than this. In a highly political statement, Schwarzenegger also said that Tookie Williams' 1998 book Life In Prison was dedicated to people like Assata Shakur, Mumia Abu Jamal and particularly Black militant George Jackson which, according to Schwarzenegger, is a significant indicator that Williams is not reformed and that he still sees violence and lawlessness as legitimate means to address societal problems.

George Jackson and the other prominent Black figures mentioned in Schwarzeneggers statement are heroes to a lot of Black people and people of all races and nationalities because of their revolutionary stance. This is proof that this is a politically motivated execution.

It does not matter to Schwarzenegger and the powers-that-be that Stanley Williams has changed. That he has consistently spoken out against gang violence. Or that the evidence which led to his conviction of four murders in 1981 was circumstantial and that the testimony against him came from people facing felony charges of fraud, rape, murder, and mutilation. Or that he had consistently and repeatedly said that he is innocent.

Since his final appeal was denied, the powers-that-be have put Stanley Williams execution on a fast track. They moved it up ahead of people who had their final appeals rejected before him.

This represents a leap in the vicious, racist, and genocidal program they have for the masses of people in the inner cities. Many of the youth of the inner city have no jobs and no prospects of ever being employed. The system has no productive use for them. The working of this capitalist systems puts people in desperate situations where crime becomes the only option for many, many of them to live. Then, Black and other oppressed youth are attacked and maligned and demonized. William Bennett, a former adviser to Ronald Reagan, has said: If you want to get rid of crime you could abort all Black babies and the crime rate would go down. Thats genocide.

The execution of Tookie Williams comes on the heels of Hurricane Katrina, where tens of thousands of Black people were left to die. The Bush regime is making it LOUD AND CLEAR that GENOCIDE is their agenda. Look at what they did. People in New Orleans did not have to die. But the powers that be left thousands of people to suffer and die needlessly, while at the same time demonizing them and sending in the National Guard to suppress them. Didnt Bush himself issue an order to shoot to killanyone who was caught looting, no questions asked? The system's well-oiled propaganda machine spewed out lies about Black people raping babies and robbing and murdering each other. The very clear message was: the masses of Black people in New Orleans were demons and deserved to die.

Hundreds and even thousands of people who tried to get into New Orleans to rescue, feed and give medical aid to people were stopped by the army and police and prevented them from helping people. A congressman from Louisiana said they had been trying to get rid of the projects in New Orleans for years and god decided to do them a favor by getting rid of them.

Again the message was that Black people are bad seeds who do not deserve to live.

Pat Robertson, one of Bushs Christian Fascist advisors, has called for a biblical model for crime and punishment which suggests genocide against the masses of people in the inner cities as well as preparation to use extreme repression and even execution against people who do things which are minor crimes or in many cases no crime at all.

What kind of system is this that does these things? It is one that cries out for proletarian revolution..

Although Stanley Tookie Williams was not a revolutionary, he dedicated his book Blue Rage, Black Redemption in this way: To poor people, prisoners, slaves and the disenfranchised everywhere through faith and theories put into practice you bend the most oppressive circumstances to your will, to make the impossible possible.

REVOLUTION IS THE SOLUTION

When we make revolution and overthrow this system based on profit and exploitation we can change all this. We can build a new socialist society and give everybody jobs. Feed everybody. Give people good medical care. We will be able to cure people hooked on drugs instead of locking them up. Everybody will be fed on the strength of being a human being. Everybody will be given good medical care. More than that they together with the masses of people will be brought into the process of running society. Deciding the direction that society should go so that it serves the people. Deciding how many schools and hospitals to build. How much food to produce. How much to put aside for natural disasters and how much to send to people around the world fighting for revolutionary change. Not only will peoples material needs be met, but their intellectual and spiritual needs will be met as well.

The powers-that-be do all they can to prevent people from rising to this potential. One of the ways they do this is by trying to force us to accept the hand that the system deals us from its stacked deck. Trying to be somebody and get respect on the terms that the system sets is no solution either.

In the world today no one has to go without. No one has to be hungry or living in poverty. No one has to seek respect or attempt to come up by banging or riding on others.

People have developed enough wealth, knowledge, science, and technology to give everyone on the planet a decent life. To feed and provide housing fit for human beings to everybody. To enrich everyones life with sports, culture, and art.

The only reason this does not happen is because all this wealth, knowledge, science, and technology that has been created by humans over thousands of years is controlled by a tiny handful at the top of this imperialist system. And they use it to re-produce and enforce this dog eat dog way of life over and over again.

Its gonna take communist-led revolution to lead those on the bottom of society, the employed and the unemployables. The disposables. Those with nothing to lose, together with their potential friends from the middle class to rise up and take the power of running society out of the hands of those who run this system take all this wealth that people have created, build a new system, and put all societys resources in the service of emancipating humanity.

A CHALLENGE:

To all those this system has cast off. To all those this rotten system tries in every way to drag down. To all those this system treats as less than human. Rise up and be somebody for real. Rise up and join the communist emancipators of humanity. Rise up and join the grave diggers of this foul and cruel system.

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READ: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20051213/D8EFF7D80.html
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